


Raising Hope

by Spiegatrix_Lestrange



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Cockblocking, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Family Fluff, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Mild Sexual Content, Mild Smut, Rey Needs A Hug, Single Dad Ben, Single Parents, nanny rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 08:13:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15457065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiegatrix_Lestrange/pseuds/Spiegatrix_Lestrange
Summary: Ben Solo is a single dad with a crush on his daugher's far too pretty, young and kind nanny. He doesn't have a chanche obviously, or at least that' s what he have thought until now.





	Raising Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dalzo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dalzo/gifts).



Ben remembered the day his daughter Hope came into his life like probably the weirdest day ever. At the time, only five years prior, he barely remembered Hope’s mother, Bazine, a girl he had met in a particularly drunk night while he was particularly keen to bad decisions.

All he knew was that 9 months later the local county jail called him to pick up his newborn daughter, just born from Bazine, apparently a convicted criminal with a thing for armed robbery.

The woman had given him a beautiful baby girl with, apparently, half of his genes. As it came out lately it seemed that Bazine actually got pregnant on purpose in the attempt of getting a softer sentence, but when the judge denied her the parole she lost all her interest in the child, renouncing to all her rights on her. 

That way, Ben Solo, 25-year-old programmer with barely enough time to breathe, no personal life and no previous experience with children, ended up out of nowhere with a newborn daughter in his care. 

At first it had been, of course, quite a shock, and not just for him but also for his parents. Not that his mother hadn’t wanted grandchildren, quite the opposite, and yet let’s just say that took him a while to get comfortable with the idea without freaking out.

Luckily, the first meeting made them all realize how much Hope resembled Ben’s mom and the overwhelming feelings that followed happened to be positive. After all, she was a Solo, and none of them would have ever let her down.

Ben’s new status made his mother even more impatient to see him settle down with the right girl, preferably a good girl who liked kids at this point, but fortune didn’t seem to smile upon him in that department. Between work, his daughter, and his now quite comprehensible mistrust in women, Ben wasn’t particularly eager to get into a relationship he was too busy to start, or at least this is what he told himself. A far more reliable truth, he barely managed to admit: he was scared. 

Scared he would have met someone ready to use him, just like Bazine did, and now it wasn’t just him anymore, there was Hope too, and letting anyone close enough to hurt them was far too dangerous.

Almost anyone, to be fair. Not like this admission would have changed anything, after all.  
One year ago, when Ben was about to turn 29 and Hope has been four already for a few months he realized his mom’s help wasn’t enough anymore, so he hired someone to help him with his child. After a few interviews, the perfect candidate showed up.

 

Rey Kanata, 20, clever, affectionate, responsible, well mannered. Part-time student at the same university Ben went to, engineering major. 

It all went pretty smoothly until the spring came.

 

Not that Ben didn’t notice that their nanny was pretty, he wasn’t blind, but until the temperature started to rise he managed to not pay too much attention to her, even if her freckles, her big hazel eyes and her gentle smile could have become easily a distraction.

The real problem started when the skirts started becoming shorter, the button-down shirts got replaced by tank tops and a generous amount of gorgeously freckled skin started showing up. 

Considering his previous experiences, it was clear what Ben had to do: ignore a pair of pretty legs, which was for the best, except that Rey wasn’t just a pair of pretty legs. She was sweet and kind, patient and funny and Hope adored her. 

In other words, Ben was screwed. Stuck with this gorgeous girl in his life and yet totally unable to something to her, he was just the father of the child she was taking care of. 

He was almost used to that kind of sweet torture when one bright day of summer things got definitely worse. He had awoken Hope like usual, made her breakfast and heard the familiar, reassuring sound of Rey opening the door and saying hello as he took a look at his emails, drinking his black coffee. 

Ben replied with a smile he couldn’t avoid as the young woman entered the kitchen, offering to his little girl a huge grin and a gentle embrace Hope snuggled briefly into.

As usual, Rey was taking care of the dishes when Hope spoked timidly.

“Dad?”

 

“Yes, Sweetie?”

“Can Rey be my mom?”

The most awkward and tense silence Ben could remember fell in the room at that point, only to be smashed by the loud crush of a glass on the floor and the sudden loud cough of him struggling to not choke on his coffee.

As soon as he managed to breath properly he noticed two things: the pure, genuine innocence on his little girl’s face, cautiously waiting for an answer, and Rey’s slender frame bowing to clean the broken glass from the floor, hands trembling as her face remained out of   
his field of vision, probably on purpose.

“Honey,” Ben started hesitantly, “This is not how it works, you know that.”

“Jimmy at the park has a new dad,” Hope explained candidly, her eyes on her breakfast, “His mom got married and now he has a new one.”

The man’s eyes flickered almost helplessly between Rey and his daughter, the fact that he wasn’t able to read her expression was making him nervous.

“Hope, honey,” he muttered as he rose to his feet, moving a couple of cautious step toward his little girl, “It’s complicated. It’s very sweet of you to want Rey as a mom, and I’m sure she loves you very much but… This is not her role, and it’s okay.”

 

“So you don’t want to marry Rey so that she can be my mom?”

For Christ’s sake. Ben inhaled sharply as his eyes searched sideways for his nanny’s reaction, only to find her showing him her back, awkwardly cleaning the same dish for the second time.

“Honey, I think Rey has other plans,” he tried to joke, giving Hope a smile that was far too uneasy to be confident, “but it’s okay. It’s not like you can marry someone out of the blue, you need to fall in love with them first.”

“So you don’t love Rey?” Hope seems almost offended by what she deducted from his words. Damn his far too clever little girl. She was definitely too smart for her own good, or for his for that matter. 

He cleared his throat repeatedly, searching for the correct answer as the total absence of blatant reaction from their nanny was starting to driving him insane.

“Of course I do love Rey, she’s a member of this family, honey.” Did he just ear a sob? his eyes ended on the young woman’s figure for just a second. No, it couldn’t be. Better to move on and end this discussion once and for all, “But there are many types of love and -”

The sudden sound of the doorbell was probably the sweetest, most reassuring sound he’d heard in years.

He almost forgot that today Hope was supposed to go with his friend Phasma and her child Adrian to the park. 

“Rey, can you please help Hope to wear her shoes?” He asked rapidly as he rushed toward the door, grateful to his old friend like never in his life.

 

What happened after he opened the door was quick. The tall blonde woman he knew since college must have notice something strange in his expression, and luckily she didn’t asked, she knew him far too well to realize that it wasn’t the right time, Adrian greeted him politely, searching with his curious eyes for Hope as his little girl, with her pretty new shoes on, ran toward the door to join them. 

Phasma herself shoot a glare behind him, and she must have noticed Rey’s presence because in a second she was shooting him a knowing look he wasn’t totally ready for. After all, Phas has rambled for days about him asking his far too pretty nanny out. 

Before he could protest Hope was hugging him goodbye and the door was closed in front of him, Phas and the kids gone, and an overwhelming silence filling the room once again. 

Ben took a deep breath before turning around, taking a look at the still unreadable figure of Rey, offering him her back as she kept washing the same dish as before.

Damn, it was quite easy to notice that she wasn’t alright, even if he couldn’t see her face. 

There must have been something he could do.

The man was finally back in the kitchen as he spoke:

 

“Rey?” he murmured “ Are you alright?”

 

She nodded far too quickly and then… Was that another sob? Oh, god. Oh no, please no. 

Guilt smashed into his chest, almost emptying his lungs with a violent squeeze. She was upset, of course she was. Ben was so used to talk to kids nowadays he almost forgot about interaction with adults. The way he explained the situation to Hope must have upsetted her somehow, maybe he hasn’t been sensitive enough, maybe he should have let her talk to   
Hope, maybe… 

“Rey?” He moved closer, struggling to not put automatically his hand on her shoulder. After all, if she was upset, the last thing she needed was unwanted physical contact.

“Rey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing…” She mewled so weakly his heart ached in his chest as she kept avoiding his gaze. His hands ended on the dish she had washed obsessively in the last few minutes, taking it from her weak grip.

“Rey,” his voice sounded definitely worried now, he couldn’t help it. “Please, look at me.”  
When she finally turned around to look at him and his brain registred what was actually going on on her face his stomach clenched helplessly.

That pretty freckled face was wet with tears, her sweet hazel eyes swollen, looking at him with hopeless embarrassment.

“I’m sorry Mr. Solo I-” She hiccupped, “I didn’t mean to react this way but...The whole parents topic is… And I…” The girl didn’t manage to finish the sentence properly, looking away as she tried to wipe her own tears with the hem of her sleeve.

Ben have never appreciated Rey calling him that. Not that he expected her to call him anything different, considering her usual respectful and almost shy attitude, but now that name was almost hurting him, an obvious representation of the distance she was trying to keep between them, even when she was so fragile and he could feel so strongly the need to comfort her, to have her close, to take care of her. Of course it was inappropriate, of course that wasn’t his role, but somewhere deep in his guts he knew perfectly, without need of admission, how much he would have loved to hear her call him Ben, just Ben. 

“Rey, I -” Damn, trying to keep his distance and trying to comfort her at the same time was hard. And if the words weren’t helping his damn hands were trying to act on their own accord, moving to cradle her shoulders. He forced his arms to lie on his sides, motionless, but it felt almost painful. “- I didn’t mean to upset you, I’m sorry if the topic was a little too sensitive.”

“It’s not your fault,” She admitted, her hand covering her mouth as she looked away again, taking a deep breath as she tried to speak again, “I- just… It’s just the fact that I don’t have a mom, just like Hope and… I remember how it like to not know how it’s like to have one, and it breaks my heart that Hope must go through this herself.”

Ben didn’t know which thing he would have preferred: being swallowed whole by the floor or being stroke by a lightning right there. He didn’t know anything about the girl’s past, and now he was in an even more complex position.

“Gosh, I’m an idiot,” he blurred out almost without realizing.

“No, no,” she sighed, leaning forward almost trying to make her point by getting closer. Wait. Was her hands on his arm now? Fuck, yes, it definitely was. It was just a gentle, comforting touch, but it appeared almost exhilarating to him for a moment. She was crying, and yet she was still trying to comfort him. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Mr. Solo, really. I-”

“Ben.”

His own name spilled out from his lips without his permission, it was almost a plea now as she gave him a hesitant look. Well, since he was there already.

“Please, call me Ben,” he insisted calmly.

Rey took a deep breath and just nodded slowly, and the man tried to hold back a sigh of   
relief.

“Rey,” he started again, fighting over and over with his own hands to keep them still. “I’d like you to know that I was serious before. You’re really part of this family to us. I know that it’s not much but -”

 

His sentence must have had quite an impact because he wasn’t ready at all for the total surprise that came next, a surprise he was totally unprepared for.

He felt Rey’s small hands clenching on his chest, grabbing the fabric of his shirt, a determined pull dragged him far too near to her face and in a second soft pink lips that tasted like coffee and toothpaste were on his, brushing against his mouth in what, he realized a couple of seconds later, was a kiss. Rey was kissing him. Rey, the young woman he had fantasized about in the last few months was kissing him. He was still in shock, momentarily incapable of finding the strength to respond when she pulled away with such a rush it seemed like she was catching fire. 

 

As she was far enough for him to look again at her face her eyes were wide and her hands were covering her mouth.

“Oh my god,” she said slowly, in evident panic. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry,” the girl pleaded.

It took him a second of two to recover from the shock and mentally curse himself for his absence of response.

“I-It’s okay,” He hardly managed to mutter.

“No, it’s not,” Rey almost whined, her hands in her hair. “You’re my boss and I- I’m an Idiot,   
I’m so sorry.”

It was his turn to take a deep breath.

“Rey, It’s okay, really. You did nothing wrong. You’re just vulnerable right now and I know that, unfortunately, this means nothing.”

Wait. Wait just one second. Had he really said that? His damn mouth felt like it has a will of its own but it was too late to complain. He was only left with the shame of his involuntary admission as he witnessed to the strangest, most confused look Ben have ever seen on her slowly appearing on her face.

“You just said…” Rey spoke hesitantly.

 

“Yup,” he admitted, reaching with the tips of his fingers for the bridge of his nose. After all, there was no point in trying to argument his statement further, no point in trying to change what he had said.

“Oh,” The young woman only managed to say. 

Yeah,   
. Ben Solo, 30, programmer, single dad, professional idiot.  
He was about to curse himself so loudly in his own head he barely heard her low whisper.

“Ben?”

That brief sound gave him a shiver and in a moment his gaze was on her.

“Yeah?”

“This means, perhaps that you are… Somehow interested in me?” She looked like   
pronouncing that question almost gave her a heart attack.

“Yes?” He hesitated a little too obviously as he searched for her gaze, trying to understand her reaction.

After a few seconds that lasted like years, Ben felt those small, soft hands on his chest again.

“So… Can I kiss you again then?” Rey asked.

 

“Oh God, yes.”

***

It was one of the coldest winter in the last fifty years but Ben didn’t seem to care. After all, it was Sunday morning. Hope was still asleep in her bedroom and a small, warm figure was cradled against him, snoring softly under the soft blankets.

So much had changed in the last few months, and the man could hardly believe how actually lucky he was to have her by her side, snuggling in her sleep against his chest, only the shirt of his pijama on as she kept sleeping so peacefully. 

The fact was that after so many years of totally ignoring his sex life, Ben Solo had turned out to be a pretty thirsty man, so what was about to happen wasn’t exactly a surprise for the sleeping woman beside him.

He moved slowly, carefully, as he lowered himself beneath the blankets, gently fighting with the hem of the shirt she was wearing to lift it up. When he finally found the soft freckled skin of his abdomen he couldn’t help but nuzzle softly against it, taking in her scent as he moved lower, leaving a gentle trail of open mouthed kisses toward her navel. 

As she finally started to stir, clearly disturbed in her slumber by his ministrations, he took the chance and made his move, before she could openly protest.

As his mouth found her core she awoke with a sleepy and yet surprised gasp that stole a small laugh from his lips against her silky heat.

When his tongue started to explore her eagerly, the soft mewl that escaped her mouth made his movements bolder as she squirmed confusedly against his face. 

“Ben…” She protested weakly in a low gasp, but he didn’t seem to care as his tongue kept tasting her, stealing another whimper as her body shook under his touch, her hips thrusting instinctively against is face despite her tone.

“Ben, please,” she mewled again, weakly, “Hope could wake up at any moment.”

He replied with a low disappointed grunt against her core.

“Luckily for that kid she has at least one responsible parent,” he commented with a puff against her lower belly.

“Oh, shut up.” A small, gentle hand grabbed his chin gently, forcing him to raise to the level of her face as a couple of sweet hazel eyes found his, accompanied by a warm little smile.

“I love you, Rey,” He tasted her name on his lips like a prayer as she gave him a swift, playful peck on the mouth.

“I love you too, Ben.”

 

No matter how many months have passed, hearing his name from her always gave him a pleased shiver down his spine, automatically stealing a vague idiotic grin from his lips.

A brief knock on the door made Ben’s grin grow wider as Rey looked rapidly for her underwear somewhere beneath the blankets. She shot him a knowing look as she finally put her panties on and the man declared in a calm voice:

 

“Come in!”

The tiny figure of Hope appeared from behind the door, sleepy dark eyes and his favorite plush bunny cradled against her small chest.

“Can I sleep here for a while?” the little girl asked, her lips pouting briefly.

“What have we told you about sleeping in the big bed?” Ben asked in a soft reprimand.

“Only in case of emergency?” Hope murmured with pleading eyes.

“Yup.”

“But I had a nightmare!”

Ben’s eyes landed on Rey, exchanging with her a knowing look.

“Mom, please, can I sleep with you?” the child whined, and the young woman couldn’t resist, a huge smile appearing on her face. Her hand tapped gently on the space between her and Ben.

 

“Okay, honey, but just this time, okay?”


End file.
